using grep when the pattern contains a !
 

I am try to search for a pattern using grep. The problem is that the pattern sometimes contains a !. This seems to mess grep up and call the last command entered into the console. How can I get it to stop doing this? It is important that I have the ! in the search. Please help!

Thanks,
farmerjoe

If the search phrase is a static string, try simple escaping the excl point, as:

This works.

If it's a variable string, you can do variable replacement using a replacement expression.

And if you're not using find, it's basically the same, but this may make things clearer:
[code]
grep "\!regexp" files

Ah! stupid me! i thought i had tried that earlier but i guess i didnt do it correctly! Thanks for the help guys!

-farmerjoe

Hmm..heres another question:

Before i run the grep command. I am going to need to convert my expression to one that will work if it has ! in it. I have tried echo "$EXPRESSION" | sed -e 's/!/\\!/g'
but that doesnt work because echo has the same problem that grep did. Any tips?

-farmerjoe

ahhhh. i see. thanks! didnt know i could do that!

-farmerjoe

HMm.. How would i do this with a ' ?
I've tried this but it doesnt seem to work:
START="This is'nt a test!"
PRE=${START//\!/\\\!}
echo "pre: $PRE"
POST=${PRE/\'/\\'}
echo "post: $POST"

Ooops! figured it out!
-farmerjoe

I didn't encounter any such problems:

Of course, if your shell permits, a built-in such as one suggested by TheLinuxDuck is faster.

HTH.